Major League Baseball players are on pace to hit more home runs than any season since 2000.

Uh oh.

You know what that means. The S word is back.

No, not strikeouts, which also are up.

I'm talking about the juiced elephant in the room that the sport used to pretend wasn't there.

Steroids.

MLB finally admitted PED use was a real problem, and in recent years has done a commendable job of erasing it from the game.

Already, nine players have been suspended for PED use this season, compared to just seven for the last two years combined, so some artificially-enhanced flies are getting caught in the net.

MLB is catching more players juicing, which means more players are juicing … and more are getting away with it.

You can't catch 'em all.

Suspicions are the order of the day for a sport that was so dirty around the turn of the century that players were brazen enough to have illegally obtained steroids shipped to their hotel rooms on road trips, and team employees thought nothing of it.

Players have launched 3,082 home runs this season. At last year's All-Star break, the total was just 2,521.

If you think all of that 22-percent increase is clean, you probably own a car you bought from a little old lady in Pasadena, who only drove it once a week, to and from church.

As ridiculous as Rob Dibble can be, the former pitcher's unsupported accusation on Twitter that Jose Altuve's increased long ball numbers might be an indicator of MLB juicing ("So No PEDs and No Juiced Balls...Please" was part of Dibble's tweet about Altuve on Tuesday night) doesn't put him alone on an island.

Altuve has hit 21 home runs in the 160 games he has played since last year's All-Star Game. In his first three major league seasons (2012, '13 and '14), he hit seven, five and seven home runs, respectively.

He has 14 home runs this season after more than doubling his previous season's best with 15 last year.

Simple explanation: Altuve is getting better.

He is so good and works so hard that he can change his approach based on what he thinks he needs to add to his game.

He is a more disciplined hitter, more selective at the plate, looking to do damage, not just get on base. He is a better baseball player at 26 years old than he was at 22 or 23.

Yet some are going to wonder if he is juicing.

He shouldn't dignify the lunatic fringe doubters with a response. He can't win. Too many before him lied too often and too good about what they did and didn't do.

Brush paints broadly

It isn't fair to players like Altuve. Being punished for the crimes of others.

But while police can't legally search your red Mustang on Loop 610 just because the last red Mustang they stopped on the Loop was carrying dope, sports fans are free to have steroids suspicions.

Especially in baseball.

I can't count the number of conversations I have had with people who assume some Texans star players are on PEDs, but those conversations concluded with them saying some version of the phrase "so what?"

As we have seen with the ridiculous Hall of Fame voting in recent years, baseball is a little different.

"It takes place against a very, very different backdrop," he said. "It takes place against the backdrop where Major League Baseball does 22,000 drug tests a year."

Manfred says the numbers indicate that home runs started rising in the second half of last season, not the beginning of this one.

"We think it has to do with the way pitchers pitch, the way hitters are being taught to play the game," Manfred said. "You've seen some unusual developments in terms of what you traditionally thought of as home-run hitters being (moved) up in the lineup, just to get them more at-bats.

"We think it has to do more with the game this time around, because we are comfortable that we're doing everything possible on the performance-enhancing drugs front."

MLB is probably putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with twenty-two, but its mild case of denial is a far cry better than its state of vial under Bud Selig.

Stiff sentences

There is now serious punishment for getting caught. A first-time positive test draws an 80-game suspension, while a second is for a full-season 162. Three strikes and you're out of MLB with a lifetime ban. And those punishments might increase in the next collective bargaining negotiations.

As long as there are sports, there will be those who try to gain an edge through PEDs. At least these days, MLB is making an attempt to catch them.

Sure would be nice if in the second half of the season we're able to focus more on who can catch whom in pennant races.

Jerome grew up in downtown Acres Homes, Texas. He is a proud graduate of Mabel B. Wesley Elementary and was a basketball team captain at Waltrip High School, where he helped the Mighty Rams to a near-.500 record.

A math genius and engineering major in college, he's still working on this writing thing. He says that the three years he spent as an F.M. Black Panther probably played a more significant a role in the man he would become than the time he spent in college.

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